2023-11-19 12:28:22
The United States finalizes an agreement with Israel and Hamas for the release of the hostages kidnapped by the Palestinian militia during the attack on October 7. The pact, revealed last morning by ‘The Washington Post’ and which was denied shortly afterwards by a White House spokeswoman, also includes five days of ceasefire as well as an increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza after the release of the kidnapped people.
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The prime minister of Qatar, a country involved in the negotiations, declared this Sunday that the obstacles to the agreement are “very minor” and that these are “more practical and logistical issues after several days of progress.” Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani made these statements in Doha after his meeting with Josep Borrell, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs.
Borrell has met in recent days in Israel with the relatives of those kidnapped. “They have asked me to ask you to do everything possible to achieve his release,” he explained in reference to Qatar’s mediating role, Al Jazeera reports. “For our part in the EU, we are also putting pressure on both sides to make this agreement possible.”
The conditions of the agreement between Israel and Hamas
The American newspaper claims that it has had access to the six pages that contain the details of a pact that commits all parties involved to a pause in hostilities. The ceasefire would last five consecutive days and would serve to release the hostages in groups of 50 people every 24 hours. “An aerial surveillance system would monitor all movements on the ground to keep track,” states ‘The Washington Post’.
“We have not reached an agreement yet, but we continue working to achieve it,” Adrienne Watson, spokesperson for the White House Security Council, said this morning through a message on X. At least ten of the 239 hostages taken by Hamas They are American citizens.
If this pause in hostilities to free the kidnapped goes ahead, both Israel and Hamas would stop their mutual attacks for the first time since the October 7 attack against twenty kibbutzim and small communities near the Strip, when the terrorists murdered more than 1,200 people. Since then, the Israeli Army’s bombings on the Gaza Strip have already left more than 11,000 civilian victims, including 5,000 children.
We have not reached a deal yet, but we continue to work hard to get to a deal. https://t.co/rbSqcqfaKo
— Adrienne Watson (@NSC_Spox) November 19, 2023
The pact between the three parties conditions the increase in humanitarian aid, on which 2.3 million Gazans depend, that can enter the Gaza Strip, although this detail has not yet been confirmed. The anonymous sources cited by the American newspaper acknowledged that “it is still a very volatile situation.”
The US has held talks in recent weeks with negotiators from both Israel and Hamas, represented by Qatar, according to diplomatic sources from Arab countries consulted by ‘The Washington Post’. However, it is not clear that Israel still wants to prioritize the release of the hostages in the midst of an offensive on the Strip.
The situation of Israeli hostages in the hands of the Palestinian militia, together with the increase in civilian casualties in Gaza, increases the pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu every day. According to sources consulted by the American newspaper, however, Netanyahu also faces tough internal pressure to demand that Hamas release the hostages first in exchange for a ceasefire, not the other way around.
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